The Minister of Education, Daniel David, pleaded, on Thursday, for the inclusion of associate professors in pre-university education, emphasizing that an appropriate form of remuneration for them must be found.
"Specialists must have a place in the system, they must enter the system. And now we have a place for specialists, but it is not promoted enough, as an associate professor paid by the hour. Because you can't even replace the tenured or substitute teachers who have the pedagogical module, the classic trainings, and bring in just anyone. But, if I have a very good economist, a very good psychologist, I would like them to teach in high school as well, to teach as a specialist, as an associate professor. We must promote this idea. It has caught on in universities. We have this mechanism in many universities, but we must strengthen this idea in the area of pre-university education as well," David said on Thursday, in Parliament, at the debate "The involvement of the business environment in education - from dual to pilot schools", organized by the Senate Education Committee.
Daniel David believes that for the established specialist who wishes to teach in pre-university education, teaching degrees should be made equivalent so that the associate professor has adequate remuneration.
"I would like us to rethink the role of the specialist. If we bring it into our minds that he is unqualified and earns 22 lei per hour, it is not the rule. But, I said that we need to think about his role as a specialist and equate him by degrees, as we do in the area of higher education. The specialist comes, the best businessman or the best painter who sells very well, is equated by teaching degrees and receives the salary accordingly. So, we will have to think about this as well," explained David.
The minister also announced that, in 2026, he intends to reorganize the School Inspectorates and the way in which competitions for school directors are held, steps that will be preceded by debates. "They must be done in time, because I would not want any change of this type to lead to national scandals again. In a system as centralized as ours, any more general approach creates waves in the system," he explained.
Daniel David also advocated for decentralization in the Education system.
"In the United States of America, as a minister, I made two or three visits there and when I was talking to the principals and saying about the framework plans, that I have such a debate in the country, they asked me what I was talking about. There, you know very well, these are the mandatory subjects, this is the budget of hours, what children need to know when they finish high school and you organize at the school level. (...) So, I believe in decentralization in the area of Education, but, it is right, with very clear mechanisms of monitoring and control, because after all, it is about mandatory education and you cannot let anyone do anything," he explained.
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